MOSCOW, March 15 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the country’s military-industrial complex, called on Friday for harsher punishments for corrupt officials who “betray the motherland” by siphoning funds from defense projects. “These crimes must be punished in the harshest possible manner,” Rogozin told a meeting of officials from the Russian Federal Service for Defense […]
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(Interfax – March 15, 2013) The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) gives a generally positive evaluation to the anti-corruption efforts of the Russian authorities and to the implementation of the GRECO recommendations, the Russian Prosecutor’s General Office said. “The GRECO has noted that Russia had accomplished a lot in a short term to implement the recommendations of the GRECO. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris – March 14, 2013) The Kremlin said on March 13 that the author of a report that claims the ruling United Russia party actually lost the 2011 elections to the Communist Part of the Russian Federation thanks to fraud needs psychiatric help is surprising and extremely embarrassing. The report is embarrassing as […]
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MOSCOW. March 15 (Interfax) – The chairman of the State Duma Constitutional Legislation and State Development Committee, Vladimir Pligin, has said he sees no reason to dissolve the current State Duma before its term in office expires. “There are no grounds to dissolve the current State Duma, which was elected in accordance with laws and the constitution. That is why […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Tim Wall, RBTH – March 15, 2013) Elvira Nabiullina will probably increase Kremlin control over the regulator, but have to balance conflicting demands for looser monetary policy and lower inflation. While President Vladimir Putin’s nomination of Elvira Nabiullina, a former economy minister, as Russia’s new Central Bank chief, has been hailed as a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – March 15, 2013) A new executive at the head of Gazprom could give a mighty boost to the stock price of the world’s biggest gas producer, especially if the replacement came with a policy change, according to managers that run funds with Russian assets. The belief comes even as there is understanding […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines/Interfax – rbth.ru – March 15, 2013) Russian political scientists speculate that increasing instability in the Arab world could further exacerbate the Syrian conflict and heighten tensions in the Middle East. The Syrian conflict has taken on a regional scale since it broke out two years ago, Russian political scientists said, adding that the chance of restoring […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – March 14, 2013) “With the full support of a feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment, Washington is slipping, if not plunging, into a new Cold War with Moscow.” Strong words from Professor Stephen Cohen in a January article published in The Nation, who is a lonely voice […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Richard Solash – March 13, 2013) WASHINGTON — A tussle is brewing in Washington over who will be included on a U.S. list of sanctioned Russian officials to be published next month. Officials with the State Department are reportedly advocating steps that would shorten the politically sensitive “Magnitsky list,” while members of Congress and NGOs who […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – March 14, 2013) Asked to end speculation about the identity of the next chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, President Vladimir Putin promised an “unexpected” candidate who would be well received. When it did come, the announcement that presidential adviser and former Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina would fill the post was a […]
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(Interfax – March 14, 2013) Russia’s opposition, human rights campaigners and civil activists have decided to establish a new public movement, which will be named the Civil Federation. Leading human rights organizations, the For Human Rights movement and the Moscow Helsinki Group, activists of the Moscow Civil Forum and the White Ribbon pro-opposition group will form the core of the […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, 13 March 2013) The Presidential Council for Human Rights has called for a reform to denationalize federal TV channels in the next few years because it believes that the level of the authorities’ influence on their information policy is blocking the formation of an appropriate picture of modern Russian society. “The Council considers it necessary to recommend […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Winning – March 14, 2013) Senior government officials on Wednesday rejected as pure fantasy a leaked report that cast doubt on the ruling United Russia party’s victory in the 2011 State Duma elections, saying its author should seek psychiatric help. The report, written by Stepan Sulakshin, director of the Governance and Problem Analysis Center, […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 14, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-without-inspiring.html) Unless Russia’s “ruling class” comes up with a sufficiently grandiose project capable to inspire the population and give it a new “passionate impulse,” there is little chance that the country will remain “a unified state,” according to a scholar at the Presidential Academy of Economics and State […]
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MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) – The birth rate in Russia grew by over 10% year-on-year this January. “Some 158,900 babies were born in January 2013 or 15,100 (10.5%) more babies than the year before. That was the highest January birth rate since the launch of the demographic program. Birth rates tend to be lower in the first month of the […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Igor Rozin, based on Interfax – March 14, 2013) Representatives for the Russian church and the government hailed the election of the new pope as a good sign for Orthodox-Catholic relations. The Russian Orthodox Church has welcomed the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, as Pope Francis. “The new […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – March 14, 2013) The salaries of top state employees have doubled since December, but such remunerations remain minute compared with unlawful kickbacks to the echelons of power, an anti-corruption expert said Wednesday. Higher pay amounts to buying loyalty from bureaucrats, but state salaries can hardly act as an efficient tool against […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – March 13, 2013) When Royal Shakespeare Company alum Jonathan Bex realized he was spending a lot of time in Moscow but had little hope of acting in any of the city’s many theaters, he came up with a creative solution. He decided to start a theater company that would offer exclusively English-language […]
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GORKI. March 12 (Interfax) – Russia’s first major privatizations will begin in the second half of this year, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. “We have not considered the timing, but I think that in any event the start will be in the second half,” Siluanov responded when asked when the first major privatizations would begin during a meeting conducted […]
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MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) – One of the most suspenseful appointment decisions of the past year has come to an unexpected expected conclusion. On one hand, Kremlin adviser Elvira Nabiullina only recently emerged as a potential candidate to replace Sergei Ignatyev as chairman of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). On the other, after President Vladimir Putin said that he […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – March 13, 2013) Members of the political opposition often accuse state officials of grandiose misdeeds, such as falsifying election results, stealing millions from state coffers, or even ordering the killings of their adversaries. Lately, they have begun accusing pro-Kremlin officials of a far less sinister offense, one more often leveled at schoolchildren […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Doronina, special to RBTH – March 12, 2013) While Moscow’s street politicians take a breather, experts observe a rise of social activity in the Russian regions. In contrast to the capital, the demands of the Russian hinterland are social rather than political. In its monthly analytical ranking of social and political stability […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Julia Reed in Moscow – March 13, 2013) The political demonstrations that started in December 2011 caught the headlines, but a Russian revolution to oust President Vladimir Putin failed to appear and the broad protest movement is petering out. However, those protests have given birth to the beginnings of a real civil society and […]
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MOSCOW, March 13 (RIA Novosti) More than 244,000 draft-age men avoided conscription into Russia’s Armed Forces last year, the General Staff reported on Wednesday. Some 8,794 Russian men received their draft card but did not show up at the recruiment office as required – a criminal offence carrying a prison term of up to two years under Russian law, […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 46 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Roger McDermott – March 12, 2013) Moscow’s plans to reform and modernize its conventional Armed Forces have become encased in experiment, indecision, bureaucracy and secrecy. Since Army-General Sergei Shoigu was appointed as the defense minister in November 2012, the “reform” has officially stayed “on course,” while numerous […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – March 13, 2013) The case of an entrepreneur who spent five years behind bars before even being sentenced will be used by the business ombudsman to reduce the maximum time that suspected criminals can remain in pretrial detention. Business ombudsman Boris Titov has joined forces with human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin to […]
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MOSCOW, March 12 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow criticized on Tuesday what it described as the United States’ biased interpretation of the Geneva Communiqué as supporting the Syrian opposition. “Public statements by representatives of the US administration in support of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces in fact point to a one-sided interpretation of the Geneva Communique,” Russian […]
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(Interfax – March 13, 2013) Russian Central Elections Commission (CEC) Chairman Vladimir Churov has criticized a report issued by a think-tank claiming that the 2011 elections to the State Duma were rigged and that the Communist Party actually garnered more votes in them than the United Russia party. A number of media outlets on Wednesday published conclusions from a report […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – March 13, 2013) The level of trust in government officials and business executives remains dramatically low in Russia, with most residents saying they are more inclined to rely on their colleagues and independent experts, a research company said Tuesday. Only 5 percent of Russians believe that any government official tends to tell […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Scott Rose – March 11, 2013) OAO Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas export monopoly, is thwarting efforts to boost oversight of its $28.9 billion in capital spending as the state seeks to improve investment, Deputy Economy Minister Sergei Belyakov said. “Despite the fact that it’s a state company, even we, to put it mildly, can’t always see […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 12, 2013) President Vladimir Putin has instructed major state companies to unofficially provide tax and financial authorities with information about their deals monthly in an effort to probe corruption. The Federal Tax Service and Federal Financial Monitoring Service receive the information in order to check whether corporate management is affiliated with any businesses, a […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ben Aris, special to RBTH – March 11, 2013) Some $350 billion has fled Russia since the 2008 global crisis. But things aren’t as bad as they seem. Genuine capital flight is only half the official figure, according to a new study by Ernst & Young, together with the Russian Direct Investment Fund […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 12, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-at-putins-order-fsb.html) At the direction of President Vladimir Putin, the FSB is not only monitoring social networks but using one of their features to create problems for those opponents of the regime who use them by posting statements on their sites and then invoking the appearance of those materials […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson, Richard Solash – March 11, 2013) What if $230 million went missing and no one wanted to get it back? That is the puzzling question posed by Russia’s years of unwillingness to investigate the well-documented fraud claims made by lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky. At least half a dozen European Union countries, plus Switzerland, […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 11, 2013) The number of Russians, who support the ban on the adoption of Russian children by foreign citizens, has been increasing. Currently, 64 per cent of citizens are supporters of this position, a poll carried out by VTsIOM (All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre) in early March has shown. According to the poll, 53 per cent […]
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MOSCOW. March 11 (Interfax) – Russia has the biggest child suicide rate in Europe, the Rospotrebnadzor website reported on Monday. “Russia has the highest suicide rate among children and teens in Europe. The rate has grown by 35%-37% in the recent years. In all, Russia reported about 800,000 suicides from 1990 to 2010,” it said. The child suicide rate continues […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – March 12, 2013) Irina Yarovaya, head of the State Duma’s powerful Anti-Corruption and Security Committee, on Monday became the latest United Russia deputy to face embarrassing allegations of ethics violations with the publication of a report accusing her of de facto owning a multimillion-dollar apartment. Despite declared earnings of 2.9 million rubles […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – March 11, 2013) Tsar Peter I once proposed to his prosecutor-general that corrupt officials be either exiled to Siberia or executed. “But then who will be left?” the prosecutor responded, according to the oft-repeated historical anecdote. “We’re all thieves.” President Vladimir Putin repeated this tale during his press conference in December to illustrate […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Gray – March 11, 2013) It would be hard to find expats in Moscow who deny that life has become more comfortable here since 2000 – more expensive, but more comfortable. Yet some people, such as Alexander Lorenz, do look back with nostalgia, The chairman of the Raiffeisen Pension Fund, he arrived in Moscow […]
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MOSCOW, March 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will complete a plan for a program to protect itself against threats from space by the end of this year, Civil Defense and Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov said on Tuesday. That comes a month after a meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere undetected by existing space-monitoring systems and slammed into Russia’s Urals on February […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Natalia Bespalova, Special to RBTH – March 12, 2013) Ukrainians would not want to join the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan at the expense of Euro-integration, but the Ukrainian president says his country “is not tough or rich enough to neglect such cooperation” Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 45 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Pavel K. Baev – March 11, 2013) Entering the second year of his third presidency, President Vladimir Putin has shown uncharacteristically scant interest to foreign policy matters perhaps suspecting that Western “partners” are sponsoring Russia’s opposition movement and that neighboring post-Soviet leaders and even Chinese “friends” are […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – March 12, 2013) A much-touted agreement with the European Union making travel easier for businesspeople, students, NGO workers and other professionals might go into force finally, as Brussels has changed its stance on Moscow’s demand to include a visa waiver for government officials. But there are some catches, as both sides […]
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MOSCOW. March 11 (Interfax) – Moscow hopes for the revision of the international arms trade treaty approved at last year’s conference in New York. “Hopefully, correct conclusions will be drawn from the negative experience of the July conference and the opinions of all participants in the process will be taken into consideration. We also think that the draft used as […]
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MOSCOW, March 12 (RIA Novosti) A former officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) suspected by the British authorities of poisoning Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko said on Tuesday that he will pull out of the inquest into the killing, blaming political pressure from London. Andrei Lugovoi, who met with Litvinenko days before his death in 2006, called a press […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anya Aseeva – March 11, 2013) The Prosecutor General’s office, together with the Justice Ministry and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, has begun conducting large-scale unscheduled checks into non-governmental organizations to determine sources of foreign funding, a news report said Monday. Marina Grudneva, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s office, said the inspection was being conducted […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – March 11, 2013) Journalist and theater director Mikhail Kaluzhsky called it a “theatrical slam.” Olga Shakina, a journalist from the Dozhd television channel, said it was a moment when “one theatrical event replaced another.” What they were discussing on Saturday on Echo Moskvy radio was a now-notorious performance of “Moscow Trials,” a […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 11, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-hatreds-of-deeply.html) The hatreds Russians feel toward others past and present domestic and foreign are an important reason why Vladimir Putin has been able to maintain himself in power even at a time when polls show that an increasing number of the citizens of his country do not actively […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Richard Solash – March 11, 2013) WASHINGTON — The battle over the Sergei Magnitsky case is moving to Europe. After being lobbied by activists for nearly three years, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in late 2012 to sanction Russian officials implicated in the prosecution and death of Magnitsky, a whistle-blowing Moscow lawyer who died in pretrial […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – March 11, 2013) Two municipal deputies picketed outside the Moscow City Duma last month, but nobody seemed to notice. Few passers-by stopped to ask what their handmade signs meant, and only a handful of journalists showed up to record their entreaties. To be ignored, it seems, is the plight of the municipal […]
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